Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Community Affairs References Committee: Bridging our growing divide: inequality inAustraliareport together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I thank all the witnesses and people who provided submissions to the inquiry. I also thank the secretariat of the committee for the hard work that they put into this inquiry and into helping us pull the report together. Unfortunately, I have presented a report that is not a consensus report. I have presented a majority report from the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party. As part of that report, the coalition have a dissenting report, which I am sure Senator Seselja will speak to. As chair, I have also made some additional comments on behalf of the Australian Greens, which I will come to shortly.

First off, I would like to outline the report and the key findings of the report. We had 64 submissions, which presented very valuable evidence to this committee. We also held hearings and took evidence from around Australia, which, again, presented us with a lot of evidence. We also made sure that we went to some of those areas with high rates of unemployment that have been identified as priority areas for some of the employment programs that the government is introducing.

The evidence before the committee showed that income inequality in this country has increased since the mid-1980s. The evidence also showed that the likely impact of the budget measures will exacerbate income inequality and poverty in Australia, and that the Henderson poverty line and the 50 per cent of median income poverty line indicate that there are far too many vulnerable Australians—individuals and families in receipt of income support—who are currently living in poverty. The evidence provided to the committee also shows that the level of Newstart payment is too low. The income of a single adult Newstart recipient is now more than $100 below both the Henderson poverty line and the 50 per cent of median income poverty line.

We made findings on the importance of the minimum wage and that it remains an important mechanism for low-income people to avoid poverty and participate in society. The evidence shows that the minimum wage makes a significant difference to income inequality and rates of poverty, and it is important that the minimum wage is set at a level that reflects the rising cost of living in Australia.

There is a socioeconomic gradient associated with a large range of health outcomes. Poor health outcomes are recorded for those with low incomes, and a focus on preventive health and improved access to primary health care, especially for lower-income people, will assist in lifting a number of these measures. We also looked at people who are in particular groups of disadvantage, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with disability, people living with mental illness, single parents and newly arrived migrants and who are more vulnerable to poverty and disadvantage. We also found that lower transfer payments or a low income often compounds the extent of disadvantage felt by people in those particular groups.

We looked too at the impact of not being able to gain employment—and that obviously has very significant impacts—but we also received evidence that insecure, casual, temporary, short-term contracts impacts on people on low incomes so that they become subject to income inequality. We considered what could work for people in helping them to access employment. A lot of evidence talked about the need to access stable employment and the impact employment has on people's income status and inequality. We also looked at issues such as the impact that affordable housing and stable housing can have on people's prospects and life outcomes and inequality. Further, we considered the mobility of labour.

The committee made 13 recommendations around issues such as an analysis of the budget and its impact on income inequality. We also recommended that income support measures in the current budget do not proceed. Those budget measures include moving young people off income support for six months, indexation of parenting payments single and changes to the indexation of pension payments. We also looked at the impact of inequality on older Australians. We made recommended that the changes to the GP co-payment and to higher education do not proceed. The majority report also recommended that the Australian government review the level of working age payments to examine the rate of payment to the poverty line. While I agree with that recommendation, the Australian Greens submitted additional comments that Newstart and youth allowances need to be increased. The evidence on that point was absolutely overwhelming because of the impact that the low rate of Newstart and youth allowance has on people's poverty and opportunities to gain employment.

I know that my colleagues on the committee will bring out other points in the report. I will run out of time to do justice to all the issues that we considered, but one of the key points that I would like to highlight is that not only is it clear that income inequality has increased, but that people assume that if this country does better, then—and we heard this expression a lot—with the rising tide all the boats rise. In fact, the evidence we received does not support that. It is very clear from a report which was released during our inquiry by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre that income inequality in my home state of Western Australia has risen and it has risen more than anywhere else in the country. Their report relates that directly to the mining boom. In fact they have done two reports that were relevant to this inquiry—one on the impact of the boom in Western Australia and one on income inequality. They used the median line of poverty as 30 per cent. The point that they make really clearly is that the benefits of the boom have not been shared across all the quintiles and that those in the lowest quintiles have not received the benefits of the boom. In fact, income inequality has increased in Western Australia and that fact is connected directly with the mining boom.

Those are the sorts of issues that need to be addressed. Our recommendations consider this and also the way to address housing and education, as well as improving support for unemployed people. Another recommendation is for case management for unemployed people, and there was overwhelming evidence that the individualised approach is by far the best. We also considered the impact the taxation system on inequality and, when the government issues its white paper on taxation reforms, it needs to consider that impact. From the evidence it is clear that government policies on taxation can have a direct impact on income inequality. The bottom line is that income inequality has significant negative effects and that it actually helps our economy if we reduce income inequality. I commend the report to the Senate and urge senators and the broader community to read the report.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition senators did provide a dissenting report. There are a number of reasons for that, and I want to go through some of those. I preface my remarks by saying that there is no doubt that, when we look at overseas experience, particularly in developing nations, and see one part of society that is dirt poor and another part that is fabulously wealthy, no-one sees that as a good thing. So let's make that clear. Let me also make clear that there are many Australians who do it tough. We want to see that those who are doing it toughest are given the opportunity to better their circumstances, to have the best possible opportunities to put a roof over their heads, to feed their families, to educate their families, to have good health care and to have a good standard of living. We in the coalition are constantly working towards this goal.

Where we differ significantly from our opponents on the left of politics is on the issue of how we define these things, in particular when we look at opportunity. Opportunity does not necessarily lead to equal outcomes. Equal opportunity does not mean that everyone does exactly the same, because there are all sorts of factors that go into the relative prosperity of different people in our community. Senator Siewert touched on that when she highlighted the issues in WA. This is where we differ significantly from many of those who made submissions, many of those who gave evidence and many of the findings from the Greens and the Labor Party. Senator Siewert seems to think that the WA experience is a terrible one, that it is a bad one. I take a different view. If you look at the WA figures—they are cited in the report—you will see that, yes, in WA the gross household income of the top eight deciles increased by an average of 46.5 per cent between 2003-04 and 2011-12. In comparison, the bottom two deciles increased—it says 'only increased'—their income by an average of 28 per cent. Yes, the top moved forward more quickly than the bottom, but let us do another comparison. Let us do a comparison with Tasmania, which, based on the Gini coefficient, which is used heavily by those opposite, is in fact the most equal. It is also the poorest.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could you explain the Gini coefficient to me!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will briefly do it for Senator Conroy's benefit. According to the Gini coefficient, Tasmania is the most equal but it is also the poorest. That is one of the fundamental issues. You can have a Gini coefficient, you can have all these measures that say, 'Tasmania is more equal than WA. Isn't that a wonderful thing?'. I would prefer to see an economy are in as quickly as WA's, lifting incomes across the board, than to see Tasmania's economy, which has not been growing but where everyone is more equal. We bring everyone together. We bring everyone down. That is the Left's way of doing things. That is how you make everyone equal. If there is no economic growth we will all be more equal.

I will give some more figures. I completely disagree with Senator Siewert's comment, which is actually talking Australia down. If you look at the economic growth that actually occurred under a former Labor government, the Hawke-Keating government—it was different with the last Labor government—and under the Howard government we did see incomes rising across the board. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Isn't that something we should be celebrating, as those at the bottom see their income going up in real terms? They see their opportunities going up. In some cases, those at the top end are going up a bit faster. Is that really the fundamental issue? Would we rather see the Tasmanian experience, where everyone grows slowly together and grows closer together, or the WA experience, where we see faster growth, a stronger economy and, low and behold, those at the bottom in WA—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Seselja! Okay, we have silence back in the chamber. Please resume your contribution.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am going to go through some of the statistics. We have a very useful table of incomes that splits up income growth over a period of couple of decades right across the OECD. It is a really useful look at how people are doing. This is real growth in income, so it is above inflation. It is people's actual improvement. It is an OECD comparison. The total population of Australia on average saw incomes go up annually in real terms by 3.6 per cent in that time. That compares very well to the rest of the world. We see that the bottom decile went up by three per cent—the average was 3.6 per cent—and the top decile went up by 4.5 per cent. In that case, yes we have seen the top going up more quickly than the bottom. Let us look at some of the examples given to us as the benchmark by witnesses. The benchmark was the Scandinavian countries. We were told that they were the ones we should be seeking to emulate.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What's their Gini coefficient?

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In fact, it is getting worse, Senator Conroy. They are getting less equal. The income of the total population in Finland, for instance, went up by 1.7 per cent and the top decile went up twice as quickly as the bottom. We were told that places like Sweden are wonderful, but there the top went up six times as quickly. So that argument did not really hold water. The ones that really struck me—this goes back to the Tasmanian example—the countries that saw the bottom going up more quickly than the top, so therefore the country was becoming less unequal, were Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

We see countries whose economies are not doing well becoming more equal. That is at the heart of the debate we are having with our Labor and Greens colleagues. It is not about bringing everyone down. It is not about slowing economic growth so that everyone becomes a little closer together. We should acknowledge, if you look at the last couple of decades of Australia, that we have done well not just in overall economic growth but across the income levels. Across income levels, people have gotten better off. That is something we should be celebrating. We should not be taking the model that is suggested to us in the majority report, that we take the Tasmanian example as somehow being better than the WA example. I completely reject that. That is socialism masquerading as fairness. It is really simply about the redistribution of wealth. We want to see everyone lifted. We want to see everyone given the opportunity to thrive. If you do that, if you create those economic conditions, inevitably some people will do a bit better than others. We should be doing all we can to make sure that there are not blockages to those opportunities so that people can have the opportunity to get a good education, whatever their background, and people can have the opportunity—if they want to—to start a business without the government getting in their way constantly and holding them back. We want to empower Australians.

Two people who are given exactly the same opportunities will not always have exactly the same outcomes. That is the way life is. We do not actually resile from that. Some people will choose to put more hours into their business or into their work and they may well get more prosperity. Some people have more luck. In the end, as long as we are having the fundamental conditions that allow people to thrive, we believe that is the way to go and not the model that is suggested to us by those opposite, which is that we bring everyone down and bring everyone closer together. We want to lift everyone up, give everyone the opportunity to thrive and see the whole economy—whether it is the top, the middle or the bottom—all doing well and all having the opportunity to thrive. I think that is a fundamental difference between us and the other side. That is why we did not agree with the majority report. That is why I would commend the dissenting report to the Senate.

Nova Peris (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the report Bridging our growing divide: inequality in Australia. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the chair of our committee, Senator Siewert, for her incredible amount of work and extend my thanks to the witnesses who came forward and presented during the committee work. It is really quite interesting listening to both sides of the chamber. Senate Seselja was talking about bringing people together and not leaving people behind. The thing is that in order to do that you need investment. This is what this report is all about.

When I decided to get into politics, I did so because I wanted to fight for change. I wanted to address the massive inequalities that exist within Australia. If we cannot acknowledge that these inequalities exist, we are in complete denial of what is real and what is not real in this country. Above all, this report is fundamentally about people—human beings—and it is about providing information that allows us to better understand the compounding impacts of inequality and how it affects people that reside in our society.

This inquiry was also concerned with the extent, as we have heard from Senator Siewert, of income inequality in this nation. Primarily, it relates to the gap between those with the highest incomes in this country, those with the lowest incomes in this country and, in some cases, those with no incomes living in this country, as well as the distribution of incomes in the wage-earning population. It was of particular concern to me that these particular groups—which are divided in this society purely because of their income—have a limited ability to gain access to housing, education and employment, which are the fundamental things that play a major role in everyday life for every Australian.

One of the most particular things which, for obvious reasons, were of grave concern to me was the income of the many disadvantaged groups in this country. Some of those disadvantaged groups, which I have spoken out about and advocated for many times, are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; our older citizens who are also jobseekers; people living with a disability; those with mental illness; our refugees; single parents; and disadvantaged women. Many members of these groups are vulnerable to poverty and inequality for many reasons that they simply cannot control. That is why people need a helping hand. We could be arguing until we are blue in the face, but that is a reality of human beings. There are a lot of people out there who will always require a helping hand.

Typically among the lowest income earners in society, who are disproportionately represented in this report, are those who are recipients of social security and who are also public-housing tenants. The extent of income inequality, its effects and possible remedies relates to a number of policy areas, which involve all three levels of government. One of the things that the report identified was that the minimum wage should remain, as it is an important mechanism for low-income earners to avoid the poverty line and participate in society. Evidence shows that the minimum wage makes a huge difference to income inequality and the rates of poverty.

It is important that the minimum wage is set at a level that reflects the rising cost of living in Australia. In particular, in the Northern Territory—my home place—we have a vastly higher cost of living than anywhere else in this country and other Australians. Territorians are paying substantially more for our food, health care, fuel and rent. In fact, the Australian average weekly expenditure on food is $221.50; in Darwin it is $232.80. Another thing that is quite remarkable is that, just outside the region of Darwin, the weekly expenditure of Darwin rural area people on food is $256.90. That is a cost that continues to rise, while the minimum wage remains pretty much static.

The Northern Territory's Council for Social Services' most recent report on the cost of living states that households who depend on remote stores for their shopping are spending more than one-third of their income on food and are paying nearly 50 per cent more on food than urban households. These members of the Territory community are some of the lowest income earners in the country. For example, a family in a remote area that spends $256.90 a week on food may not be able to afford a power card, which is imperative to having power in a remote community, and therefore they do not have electricity for their fridge. In this country, we have fellow Australians who simply cannot afford electricity, which is simply astounding.

Income inequality is just one of the many inequalities that has driven poverty faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The current focus of Australian governments is to reduce the level of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's disadvantage across a number of key indicators. This year's 2014 Closing the gap report found that progress towards reaching targets on these indicators had been mixed. Income inequality is not the only issue that many people from regional and remote communities are faced with. Unemployment was a big factor in this report, and exclusion from the labour force is also a significant factor, especially in the Northern Territory. The 2011 census found that only 46.2 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were employed, compared with 72.2 per cent of non-Aboriginal Australians. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's unemployment rate was more than double the rate for non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Overcoming income inequality is a process that will require long-term economic and social investment. I encourage the state and territory governments to recognise and act on creating long-term sustainable employment opportunities for all Australians.

We all know that dignity is enhanced by work. It is important to me that we make every effort to ensure that all Australians have fair access to health care, food security, employment and housing. Without a thorough understanding of the corrosive effects of income inequality, this cannot be achieved. It is incumbent on government to use all of the recommendations of evidence provided in this report to define a better and fairer policy response to inequality, which remains the major social issue facing our country.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also would like to take a few moments today to talk about the Community Affairs References Committee's inquiry into income inequality. Along with Senator Siewert and Senator Peris, I also would like to thank the witnesses and the secretariat and all those who submitted to the inquiry for the hard work they did. It is quite clear from the statistics, the evidence given at the inquiry and the anecdotal evidence that we as senators hear from the community that there is a growing gap between the least well-off and the most well-off in Australian society. Inequality is growing in assets, incomes, health and education outcomes, and quality of life.

As a member of the committee and as a Senator from Tasmania, it was of particular importance to me to hear evidence from Tasmanian witnesses at the Hobart hearing, but I also heard evidence throughout Australia from other people. The reason it was so important to me was that I understand that Tasmania is highly affected by income inequality—no matter what Senator Seselja might like to portray. Unfortunately, 32 per cent of Tasmanians are in the lowest 20 per cent of income nationally, and 14,000 Tasmanian children are estimated to live in poverty. It is unfortunate that this government used its first budget to pursue an ideological agenda to start the process of removing the social safety nets that have been a fabric of our society since the time of Prime Minister Whitlam. The cruel cuts and broken promises in Mr Abbott's budget will only result in more suffering from Tasmanians—in particular, young job seekers, students and pensioners. Evidence given by Meg Webb from the Tasmanian Council of Social Services highlights just how bad this government's policies are for Tasmania. Ms Webb said:

The impact of the 2014-15 federal budget measures are likely to be felt across Tasmania for many years. The reduction in levels of federal funding for health, education and housing through the cessation of a number of national partnership agreements, and the removal of some special purpose payments, will have a significant impact on the Tasmanian budget. In fact, the Tasmanian Treasury estimates that the financial impact of the Australian government's savings initiatives on Tasmania will be $2.1 billion over the next 10 years. Proposed changes to income support will have a significant impact on Tasmanians and Tasmania.

I do not know how the Tasmanian government members in the other place—Mr Nikolic, Mr Hutchinson and Mr Whiteley—can say that they have been standing up for Tasmania, when their federal Liberal government wants to rip $2.1 billion out of our state.

Witnesses at the Hobart hearing included Baptcare, the previously quoted TasCOSS, the Youth Network of Tasmania, and experts of housing business, economics and sociology from the University of Tasmania. These witnesses gave many examples of how Mr Abbott's government is failing Tasmania's most vulnerable. Baptcare were particularly concerned about the effects that the government's policies would have on young Tasmanians, telling the Hobart hearing:

… Baptcare is concerned about measures in the recent federal budget which will increase income inequality, long-term and severe disadvantage, and financial and housing stress amongst our client groups. … We are very concerned that the plans to severely limit eligibility for Newstart and to move to 22- and 23-year-olds to the even lower youth allowance will lead to the loss of rental housing and increase levels of homelessness in the under 30s. And we are concerned that this may aggravate Tasmania's already high youth suicide rate.

We on this side of the chamber know just how important education is to lift people out of poverty. That is why Labor in government invested in the Gonski school education reforms and increased funding to higher education. That is why we oppose this government's plans for $100,000 degrees. Dr Blacklow reinforced this view to the committee in the Hobart hearing, saying:

… education generally is probably one of the key ways to address inequality.

Earlier this week, we debated the government's attempts to hike student fees while slashing Commonwealth funding to universities; however, we in this place have to ask ourselves how our policies will affect an individual's access to higher education. Unfortunately, the policies of the Abbott-Liberal government will take away the opportunities for children from low-income families to attend university. This will hit young Tasmanians particularly hard. The representative from the youth network of Tasmania warned the committee of the effect that the government's policies would have on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds accessing higher education. She said:

We are definitely of the view that young people, particularly young people of disadvantaged backgrounds, will be less likely to engage in higher education. It will be a goal that is just that more out of reach for many young people, particularly when you think about the difficulty in getting employment, the difficulty in getting affordable housing and things like that.

…   …   …

But here, where we have one university, it is going to be very challenging if, under the proposed rules, that university is able to set their own rates and it is then out of reach for many young people. I think that would cause a big problem.

At the Hobart hearing the committee also heard evidence about the dramatic effect the coalition's policies would have on the University of Tasmania and Tasmania's reputation as a quality higher education provider. Professor Jacobs, Deputy Associate Dean of the School of Social Sciences at UTAS, told the committee:

The areas which could attract people here are actually not getting the necessary funding to maintain their reputation abroad. The University of Tasmania is a major employer in this state. But the reforms going through the Senate will seriously jeopardise the budget of the University of Tasmania and it will become less attractive internationally for students to come here.

This government's policies on health care will also lead to a greater increase in health inequality in Tasmania. Again I would like to draw from evidence, given by Meg Webb from TasCOSS, who said:

Visits to the GP—primary health care—is the best way to avoid the much more expensive end of acute hospital care. Tasmania more than anywhere else needs to encourage better usage of primary health care. We need nothing to discourage people from attending their GP appointments regularly. A co-payment does that outright. Particularly for people in Tasmania who are on low incomes, who are on allowances and pensions, any level of co-payment required will be a deterrent and that will inevitably lead to worse health outcomes and a much more expensive health system for our state in the long run.

We already know that Tasmanian Senator Abetz does not have any empathy for the young people who are seeking work in Tasmania. He callously told young job seekers they should go fruit picking or move to get a job, but evidence given at the Hobart inquiry would argue against the view that it is easy to get a job. Mr Brendan Churchill, lecturer in social sciences at UTAS, told the committee:

For young Tasmanians, if they move and they want to move to a nearest population centre, there is no guarantee that they are actually going to find work. There is no immediate solution. I know Victoria and South Australia are also experiencing similar levels of youth unemployment, so even if they do make the jump to the mainland there is no guarantee that this issue is resolved. It is just one person less that the Tasmanian community has to worry about, which is a shame.

I call upon members of this place to read this important report. In particular I encourage crossbenchers who are trying to determine if they support a particular policy to read the report and the submissions to this inquiry, because a mountain of evidence was gathered in opposition to the government's policies.

This inquiry got to the root of income inequality in Australia. It demonstrates that inequality is growing across Australia, in particular in rural and regional areas like my home state of Tasmania. The committee heard evidence time and time again about how this government's dysfunctional budget would increase inequality across Australia. I call upon the government to stop its ideological attacks on students, on pensioners, on young job seekers and on those who are not as well off as them and to start delivering policies to support all Australians, not just their mates in big business. I call upon the government to return to the ideal of Australia as an egalitarian society where we help those who are in trouble and where everyone receives a fair go because that is the Australian way.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will only talk briefly on this report. I think it is important we do so, because in terms of this particular report this is an ongoing discussion on issues that were raised over many years in the past. I think the reason it has formulated discussion in our Senate is some focus that has been put on the issue by a meeting that was held earlier this year by a group called Australia 21, which called upon the Australian community to look at the issues of income distribution in our nation. Part of the whole reason we had this inquiry was to ask: are these issues important? We know there is a wide range of view and philosophical opinion on this, and I have to admit that through the process of this inquiry I have been confronted by more economic discussion and graphs than I care to enjoy.

It is a duelling system of economic position on the area, but the one thing I think came out of it more than anything else was the fact that people care. People care about this issue. It has been given a good push along, and now Christine Lagarde has made comment on the issue and put it into the agenda to say that economies where there are clear distribution issues and income inequality are not as strong or effective as others. That has thrown a challenge to the economies of the world. What we have now is clear analysis of the status of income inequality across the OECD nations. This has led to an outpouring of graphs which show ratings as to where the Australian economy fits across other nations. Depending on which graph you look at, there are different processes of where we fit. Indeed, the core argument that came out and which I think will continue to be discussed in this place was that which Senator Seselja pointed out.

It is called the boats analogy. If the tide rises, it means that all the boats go up. The issue is that we are all better off than we were in the past. There is no argument about that. No matter which graph you look at, you see that people across Australian society have more wealth than they had in the past. But there are arguments against that, and I have to admit one that attracts me, though I am always fascinated by Senator Seselja's obsession with the left and right in this argument—I do not identify; it is not as clear as that—is that, yes, all the boats go up, but there are some boats that go up to a much higher level and leave other boats behind.

The issue that has attracted me in this discussion is the issue of mobility. If people are entrenched in an element of poverty, what are their opportunities and options for the future? We have heard other speakers talk very strongly about issues around education, health and disadvantage. The argument that we heard consistently through our inquiry was that, if you are entrenched in the lower percentiles—which comes into the argument all the time—you will have less opportunity. Your health, your education and your career and work opportunities will all be impacted.

In fact, we have seen that in a range of literature over the past years. I remember the Catholic social justice organisation put out documentation, which they are now updating, that looked at the postcode raffle in Australia. There are certain communities in Australia, because of the elements of disadvantage, who are concentrated in the lower level whose health and wellbeing are consistently going backwards. So all the boats might be rising but people in the lower groups, who are at the far end of the income scale, are seriously disadvantaged.

Several chapters of this report put forward the argument that, even though we have a stronger economy, one of the most well targeted welfare systems in the world—and every argument points to that reality—and an effective tax system that redistributes wealth and all the actions that economies are taking to make their wealth more equitable, the people entrenched in poverty, those people who are reliant on social welfare, are still severely disadvantaged. That is a direct result of aspects of income inequality in our community.

I will not talk any longer today. I can feel some tension in the air that people want to move on. We will have more opportunities to speak on this issue—I will be moving to continue my remarks later.

What we can do as a nation was part of the challenge of this committee. It was a challenge to us to keep the discussion going, to listen to the community. I think this is a step. We have a number of recommendations. Part of our recommendations is that we continue to analyse what is happening in our community, identify the issues, listen to the arguments and maintain a watch on this space. We think our government has the responsibility to keep a watch on the issue of income inequality in our community. We think that should be part of the standard operation of government. When we are putting forward budgets—and a lot of this committee looked at the impact of the last budget—we need to ensure that income inequality is one of the lenses that are put over what changes we are proposing to make. That should be part of the information that is shared freely. We think that should happen on a regular basis. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.